1969 …
… is alive, well, and living in Woodstock. Most of the 400,000 who attended the music festival have moved on … but there are a few holdouts.
A few weeks ago Marcia and I spent a couple of days exploring the Hudson River Valley and stayed in Woodstock. It’s a thriving little town at the foothills of the Catskills, full of great shops and art galleries and if you’re ever in the area it’s well worth a visit. Sunday evening we were walking downtown and heard what seemed like the drumbeat of some tribal ritual. In the square we found a couple dozen people playing percussion instruments of all kinds while others danced with wild abandon. I don’t know how long they’d been at it before we got there, but we watched for about an hour before things broke up. Nothing but percussion, on and on, and I was amazed at how hypnotic it was. And as you can see below, it was enjoyed by young and old.
The above is typical of all the utility poles in Woodstock looked like. Staples remaining from the posting of what must have been hundreds of thousands of posters announcing concerts and events over the past 44 years.